Crib Notes

The Creative Loafing team survived the brutal drive to and from Austin for this year’s South By Southwest festival, kept alive only by gallons of gas station coffee and truck stop tacos.

While we chased down every free meal and drink ticket we could find, we also managed to see a tiny fraction of the 1,900 bands that played this year. Sure, everyone is talking about it today, but we didn’t see Kanye or Metallica. We’re OK with that. Check out a rundown of our favorite moments from the festival after the jump.

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GENRE: A brick-sized collection of music journalism from a decidedly Southern magazine

THE PITCH: Trendy bands and celebrity fluff pieces aren’t welcome here. OA editor and founder Mark Smirnoff wants this writing to pay “tribute to how music seeps into us.”

BLUES SISTERS: The writing is most successful when it veers far from the confines of music history, like Carol Ann Fitzgerald’s memoir-ish tale of lesbian attraction and Bessie Smith. “I slept while she rubbed my back in motel beds. Her hands clenched and declenched, just shy of hurting. We burned candles that smelled like pumpkin pie. Bessie was on repeat,” she says.

SEX PISTOLS IN ATLANTA: Mark Binelli tells the story of the Sex Pistols’ first U.S. show at a strip mall in Atlanta. Afterwards the band heads to a bar, but Sid Vicious disappears into the night. “Vicious finally turned up at Piedmont Hospital,” Binelli explains. “After scoring some heroin, he’d gotten bored and carved the words GIMME A FIX into his chest.”

STEVE MARTIN ON FAILED MUSIC ASPIRATIONS: “Obsession is a great substitute for talent.”

ALLMAN BROTHERS IN MACON: John T. Edge quotes roadie Red Dog Campbell about Mama Louise Hudson’s soul-food restaurant, “At the H&H, they didn’t care if we were black, white, or purple. Mama didn’t say anything if we were trippin’ our asses off. Now, she might tell me to come in the back door instead of the of the front when I was messed up, but really she just fed us fried chicken and loved us.”

Read the rest here.

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I’m just sayin’.

What if CL went from newsprint tabloid-size to standard magazine-size like Rolling Stone is doing this month after 40 years in the biz? Though the venerable music magazine claims the shrink in size is not a reaction to the reduced readership and declining ad sales print publications across the nation are suffering from, it will help cut production costs.

But they plan to offset those savings by adding more pages and using thicker, glossier paper beginning with the Oct. 30 issue, according to the Associated Press:

The switch to a standard format completes the magazine’s transformation into, well, a magazine and comes as readers depend less on the printed pages for breaking news common in newspapers, said Anthony DeCurtis, a longtime writer for the magazine.

Of course, comparing a magazine like Rolling Stone to an alternative weekly like Creative Loafing is so apples to oranges. Right?

Apparently so, since Rolling Stone claims its circulation has remained stable at 1.45 million since 2006.

Read the full AP story, here.

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Last week Rolling Stone’s “Rock and Roll Daily” blog posted an interview with Mastodon’s guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds. In the interview Hinds explains how the head injuries he incurred as the result of being attacked at the VMA’s in Las Vegas last year pushed Mastodon to pursue a more melodic direction with their forthcoming album.

According to the story:

“I was dizzy for eight months… During those months, I just sat with my acoustic and a little marijuana, and wrote all the music. I wanted a more melodic, easy-listening situation, and that definitely came from having head trauma.”

From there the group sought out producer Brendan O’Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, AC/DC) to help flesh out the reportedly melodic but heavy as hell sound of Mastodon’s next record.

Read the full story here.

Hinds’ recent run-in with King Khan at the Highland Inn Ballroom in Atlanta (and ensuing witch hunt) hasn’t churned out any musical epiphanies or led to any fortuitous pairings with producers just yet, but give it time…

(Photo by Jimmy Hubbard)

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With Big Boi’s Sir Lucious Leftfoot … Son of Chico Dusty solo album set to drop in a few weeks, Andre Benjamin announced his plans to release an album of his own in early ‘09. Apparently, he’s looking forward to doing things on the solo tip despite the rash of high-profile collabos he’s been featured on in the past two years.

As he told Rolling Stone:

I’ve pretty much been working with myself,” he explains. “I’ve never really been that big on collaboration.” Benjamin wouldn’t reveal any other details, but he said he already had a goal and a direction for the album. “I have a concept, and all the soundscapes are already in my head, so I just have to figure out how to get there.”

When asked what he thought about the 1999 World Trade Organization protests, which is the subject of the new film, Battle in Seattle, that he stars in, Dre admitted he hadn’t heard anything about it until he read the script.

“I don’t know if I was out of the country or in the studio, but I missed it,” he explains. “The first time I heard about it was when I read the script and saw footage of what happened.”

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Today RollingStone.com’s Rock&Roll Daily Blog posted a new of Montreal MP3, titled “Nonpareil of Favor,” from the forthcoming full-length, titled Skeletal Lamping which is due for release in the US on Oct. 7 via Polyvinyl).

Follow the link to download Of Montreal’s “Nonpareil of Favor.“

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